Posts Tagged ‘jet lag’

Going to Australia for a vacation is normally a very complicated trip. No matter where you leave from, you are more or less guaranteed to finish up with a horrible spell of jet lag. But once you recover from the jet lag, you will be able to see the sights of the wonderland that is Australia.

If you are on vacation in Australia and you are more used to the busy day-to-day struggle in the city, then prepare for a reality call. Australia will leave you wondering where all that spare land came from. The outback is crawling with spiders the size of garbage lids and frogs so colorful that one touch sends you on a trip to the nearest hospital. It may seem like an alien planet, but Australia is by far one of the hottest vacation spots for tourists.

Travel insurance for Australia will set you up nicely with everything you may need in case you decide to act like Steve Irwin. You may even want to preface your vacation with a trip to the doctor’s to get any shots you may need to avoid illness during your stay.

But if you are staying in a nice area like Sydney or Melbourne, then you might not need to worry about spiders nipping at your hands. The sights obtainable in Australia are really unbelievable–with the Sydney Opera House getting so many visits a year. It is no wonder why.

English is the main language used in Australia, so visitors from the United States and the United Kingdom will not need to get a translation book before departure. To make things even better, if you get lost or can’t figure out where to go, you can simply approach someone on the street and ask. You don’t need to worry about the communication barrier.

Australia is an enormous land full of perilous creatures and gorgeous scenery. The people there are sociable. If you plan your trip circumspectly and get travel insurance prior to leaving, the only thing you will have to be alarmed about is the jet lag.

Jet lag is the effect of travelling between time zones upsetting ones circadian rhythms. It is defined as:

“A physiological condition which is a consequence of alterations to circadian rhythms”

The effects of jet lag can vary. Some people suffer only a few days of restless sleep whereas others may experience loss in appetite, headaches, constipation, anxiety and dizziness. There are a number of ways in which jet lag can be alleviated or the effects lessened. Here are a few suggestions:

Tasimelteon: This is a new drug developed by Elizabeth Klerman of Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston along with researchers from Vanda Pharmaceuticals, Maryland. Tests have shown that those taking the drug were far better able to fall asleep when compared with others who had not taken the drug. It is understood that Tasimeteon stimulates the effects of Melatonin, the hormone known to be responsible for regulating sleep.

Melatonin: The hormone Melatonin is now a popular remedy for sleep related problems. Melatonin supplements can be bought (in the United States) without a prescription. Melatonin research has presented a clear association with sleep and supplements that provide 0.1 to 0.5 milligrams of the hormone can be all that is needed to get off to sleep.

Fasting: Minimising the amount of food you consume before embarking on your flight can help lessen the effects of jet lag. Studies have shown that, when food is scarce, the normal biological clock may be overridden by another internal clock. A period of fasting, for about 16 hours before taking a flight, should be enough to switch the new biological clock into action and alleviate the effects of jet lag.

Orange Tinted Sun-glasses: It has long been known that Melatonin secretion in humans can be stimulated by light. Blue light has been found to be the most responsible for influencing a decrease in Melatonin production. Its therefore reasonable to expect that wearing orange tinted sunglasses will encourage Melatonin secretion.

Toe Scrunching: Some travellers have reported that spending a few minutes tightly curling their toes while standing on a carpet or towel, just before going to bed, has a beneficial effect on jet lag. Some travellers report that spending between 2 and 5 minutes carrying out this exercise has had an immediate beneficial effect on their ability to get off to sleep.

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This year many thousands of people will be flying off to far flung corners of the globe to lie on sun soaked tropical beach, to backpack through some of world’s most beautiful wilderness countryside, to visit some of the architectural wonders of our planet or to merely explore new countries and cultures. And, sadly, many thousands of us will discover that the first few days of our holiday are lost trying to recover from jet lag.

But does jet lag have to be an inevitable part of modern long-haul travel?

The answer to this particular depends very much on where you are flying to. For example, if you begin your journey in Melbourne, Australia and fly to Kobe, Japan then you are not going to experience any jet lag at all because, even though you are flying thousands of miles, your journey essentially takes you due north so that both your departure point and arrival point are in the same time zone. If however you fly from say Melbourne to London, England then you will travel east to west across ten standard time zones and will definitely suffer from jet lag.

Jet lag is merely the result of your body clock being out of step with local time and, while your internal body clock will naturally adjust itself to come into line with local time, this adjustment takes a bit of time.

If you are traveling across just two or three time zones then the time difference experienced will be small enough that you will probably not really notice it and your internal clock will adjust itself relatively quickly. However, if you travel across more than four time zones then the difference will be noticeable and your body clock will take longer and longer to adjust as you travel across an increasing number of time zones.

In our previous example of flying from Australia to London your internal clock will need several days to adjust itself fully and, while it is adjusting, you are very likely to find yourself suffering from insomnia, finding it hard to fall asleep at night and to get up in the morning, feeling tired during the day, possibly experiencing problems with eating with nausea, stomach upset, a headache, dehydration, and much more.

So exactly what can you do to counter this?

There are many ‘traditional’ cures for jet lag including jet lag diets, over-the-counter medication, sleeping pills, melatonin and much more and each of these has both its champions and critics, but do these so-called cures actually work?

The simple answer to this question is no. These so-called jet lag remedies are not effective and, in a lot of cases, will make your jet lag worse.

Coping with jet lag is not a matter of turning to pills and formulas, but is a matter of devising a plan focusing on your specific travel plans and your lifestyle that helps your body’s natural process of adjusting its own internal body clock. This means taking a number of steps in preparation for your journey, as well as during your flight and after your arrival at your destination. In some instances these will be sufficient for you to avoid jet lag completely while, in other cases, they will certainly help to reduce the effects of jet lag greatly.